sales
282 posts
Gaining The Advantage
This week you answered a customer query and solved her problem. You responded to every email, tweaked your resume and made your case well in the last meeting. You ticked off the things on your to-do list, had a look at your numbers and made solid plans for the weeks ahead. And that’s exactly what…
In Praise Of Curiosity
Not so long ago conversations with strangers just happened anywhere and everywhere. This was especially true in Dublin where I grew up. It was not unusual for someone you’d never met to practically tell you their life story while you were standing waiting for the 16A bus into the city. Showing an in
By How Much?
Our financial advisor, who lives in another state, almost 3,000km away, stayed for dinner after our annual appointment last night. Sarah spent time catching up with our boys, chatting to them about their plans for summer and beyond. We exchanged dessert recipes and movie recommendations. Of course,
One Or All?
The blackboard on the pavement outside the florist reads; ‘Flowers for ALL.’ It’s a busy spot with plenty of foot traffic, behind a tram stop, a few doors down from the hospital. Maybe that’s why they’re marketing to everyone, instead of trying to resonate with someone. The marketing speaks to passe
Important
It isn’t just your mind that responds when you get an email with the subject line ‘urgent’ or ‘important’. Your heartbeat increases, your muscles tense and your breathing gets faster. You feel bad. Your day is thrown off course, if only for a moment. We hate these emails and resent people who fail t
Knowing What You Don’t Know
The most unhelpful assumption we make as marketers is that our customers know why they need our products or services. From there we think our job is to offer proof—to tell people why we are the best alternative. The first rule of innovation, sales and marketing is to understand the customer’s pain p
The Art Of Differentiation
We, humans, have always been good at noticing what’s compelling about others. Our species’ survival has depended on our ability to recognise strengths and weed out weaknesses. Today, that skill leads us down the road of unhealthy comparison. We have no trouble rattling off the positive attributes of
The Power Of Constraints
What’s the best thing about the place where you live? What word describes your favourite book? What’s the first thing you tell a friend when you recommend a special restaurant? What standout experience made your last holiday memorable? What’s the main reason you shop where you do? What’s the biggest
What The Best Marketers Know
The call centre operator insists ‘this is not a cold call’. She knows time is running out, so she desperately accelerates her sales pitch—speaking without pausing to either breathe or listen. She was trained to believe it’s possible to close the sale if she can just impart all the information in her
How To Get Better At Pitching
Every day we fail to convince people about the value we can deliver. For every yes, we get ten no’s. Why? We’re quick to blame the quality of our ideas or our storytelling when we fail. But sometimes we fail because we’re speaking to the wrong person at the wrong time. Rejections often happen becaus
Marketing Discernment
Much of our marketing is designed to convince or convert a customer in the moment. A particular colour applied to a ‘buy now’ button, the timely Instagram post or product placement at the checkout—tactics to get the lukewarm prospect over the line. Our customer’s path to her decision is convoluted.
What Do You Want Your Brand Story To Do?
What’s the role of storytelling in your business? What are you expecting your brand story to do? Most of us tell stories to describe the value we create. Storytelling is a tactic used to convince or convert prospects to customers—a way to close the sale. We’re selling the power of story short. Befor
The Limitations Of Marketing To Persuade
We assume sales and marketing are simply a case of fulfilling unspoken desires or unmet needs and making the people with those needs aware we’ve solved their problem. But there’s another piece of the marketing puzzle we often overlook—the doubts our customers must overcome. People don’t just want to
What’s On Your Y-Axis?
The strategy for any project or business and even our days, weeks and months could be plotted on a graph using an x-axis and a y-axis. What every endeavour has in common is time. This is plotted on the horizontal x-axis. What we can change or influence is represented on the vertical y-axis. In a…
The Visibility Paradox
A bullet point list of tactics to increase your visibility might include; perfecting your elevator pitch, networking, forming strategic partnerships or creating a compelling press release. You don’t need to look far to see that we’re expending a lot of time and resources metaphorically waving our ar
Three Ways To Sell
If you want to get more comfortable about selling, it’s helpful to consider which of these three sales techniques you use and to assess how they’re working for you. Describing This is the most common way to sell—one you’ve likely experienced or used. Describing the specifications, features and benef
What Do The Best Salespeople Do?
A young couple spent a while ‘just looking’ in the furniture store before approaching a salesperson to ask about fabric choices on a particular sofa. She showed them the swatches and said nothing. The guy asked if they had anything like it—a large squashy four-seater in leather. They didn’t. “What s
What’s Your Failure Strategy?
Everything runs like clockwork when all staff members show up for the hectic Sunday morning shift at the cafe. Customers are greeted at the door, informed about delays and offered a drink while they wait for a table. The whole system falls apart when one team member calls in sick. Waitstaff double a
The Transformation Business
When a woman wears heels her posture shifts. How she moves and carries herself changes—not just because of the physics and her altered centre of gravity, but often because of how wearing the heels makes her feel. Both her gait and her behaviour are transformed. Similarly, once the coffee drinker pay
The First Law Of Good Marketing
We can tie ourselves up in knots wondering and worrying about how to communicate our value to prospective customers. Which marketing tactics should we use? How can we improve our product descriptions? What’s the best strategy for converting leads to sales? How can we ‘get more eyeballs’ on our conte
